In the mangroves, where backwaters
whisper secrets to the moon,
a woman ground betel leaves and bone-dust,
her hair a river of night.
They called her Velichathamma,
keeper of shadows, sorcerer of tides
with chants older than temples,
she bent storms to her wrist.
But her daughter was born in silence,
eyes black as toddy jars,
crying only when snakes shed their skin,
only when the rain forgot to fall.
Villagers said she carried the curse,
that her shadow walked without her,
that toddy palms bent low in fear
whenever she passed by.
At night, mother and child stitched spells
charcoal, turmeric, the blood of hens,
the girl’s laughter echoing hollow
like an oar against empty water.
One evening the river swelled red,
fish floated belly-up like broken prayers.
The daughter’s lips were stained with ash;
she whispered to the crocodiles,
and they listened.
The sorcerer knew then:
the child was no heir but a storm,
a mouth of hunger that would outlive gods.
So she drowned her in the backwaters,
fastening her with stone and saffron thread.
Yet when the monsoon rises even now,
a girl’s song crawls out of the tide
sharp, sweet, venomous
and women who hear it
find their tongues sewing themselves shut.
The mangroves keep their secret,
but the night remembers:
every daughter of fire
returns with the river.
***
Madras Courier originally ran as a broadsheet with a poetry section. It was a time when readers felt comfortable sharing glimpses of their lives through verse. If you have a poem you’d like to submit, do email us at [email protected].
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